Essen und Trinken bei Prost!

The ugly one on the left is me. The so cute you could eat her with a spoon one on the right is Laura. The blurry, amorphous blob in front of us is someone else's boot shaped mug of beer...

I can't imagine a culinary tradition more appropriate to the onset of winter in the Pacific Northwest than that of Germany. This is not the season of microgreens, peas, basil or fiddleheads. Once the rains come, Northwesterners will, of course, still bike to work or don multiple layers for a drizzly hike in the Cascade range, but sooner or later we all go into hibernation mode, if only for brief, intermittent periods. This calls for a Netflix account, resignation to sky-high gas bills, and on those occasions when we do venture out, a certain kind of sustenance, one which might fairly be described as, well, a bit heavy: root vegetables; soups and pies made of squash and tree fruit; collard greens, cabbage, and anything pickled; meat, preferably of the porcine and/or smoked variety; and yes, dark beers of excessive alcohol content.

After witnessing the third round playoff bloodletting of the Virginia Tech women's soccer team by the University of Portland (it was like watching a pod of killer whales playfully tossing around a dead seal; Laura has season tickets), my better half and I met up with a few friends on Mississippi Avenue, at the recently opened Portland outpost of Seattle's Prost! I'd been meaning to head over to the place for a while, and fortunately, we were able to deflect our friends' suggestions of the Crow Bar or Amnesia Brewery and steered the crowd toward some German fare. Here's what we found...

Das ist ein Schwartzbier:

Ich prüfte das Braunschweiger, mit Brot und grüne Äpfel:

Und Laura aß das Landjäger mit Senf und Landbrot:

Na und, die Brezeln waren nicht so schlecht... All this is delivered amidst a most glückliches atmosphere and, if you get there early enough (we didn't), you can sample a variety of food carts in the adjoining parking lot, including a mexican cart run by Jesse Sandoval, former drummer of the Shins (that's another post in itself).

I give it fünf Sterne...